


Fixing It

by imaginationisrainbowcoloured



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: (sort of), Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Getting Back Together, Getting Together, M/M, Manhattan Friendships, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Romantic Fluff, Spot Conlon is Bad at Feelings, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins-centric, Team as Family, platonic ralbert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27105499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginationisrainbowcoloured/pseuds/imaginationisrainbowcoloured
Summary: He pulled the borrowed jacket tighter around him as he stepped out of the shelter that came with the packed buildings, quietly grateful for Hotshot’s forethought, and kept walking. His cane, which he had slung through a belt loop so he could keep his hands in his pockets, hit his leg with every step, and a reminder came with every step of his position and of the risks that came with it. Mostly, however, it was a reminder that he should be back in his own lodging house, watching over his newsies, and not slipping away after dark to another lodging house. But Race’s face, hurt, betrayed and angry, had kept cropping up in his mind’s eye all day, no matter how hard he had tried to force it down. It wasn’t going to leave him until he fixed it. Until he took back the cruel words that he hadn’t even meant.He should have left the cane behind.
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Albert DaSilva & Racetrack Higgins, David Jacobs/Jack Kelly/Katherine Plumber, Racetrack Higgins & David Jacobs, Spot Conlon & Hot Shot, Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Fixing It

It was cold when Spot slipped out of the lodging house, and there was the faint but permeating smell of smoke in the air- courtesy of those who could afford to burn fires and keep warm. Winter had come early that year, and Spot could feel the chill through his clothes, even with Hotshot’s jacket, forced upon him as he was trying to slip away unnoticed ‘with love’.

Those who couldn’t afford wood to burn were keeping inside and huddling together to keep away the chill. The newsies in Brooklyn had started sleeping two to a bunk the week before and, even when they weren’t sleeping, tended to stick with their pair- it worked out for Spot, everyone had someone watching them if they got ill, skipped a meal or tried to run away. Spot was sharing with Hotshot at night, but he wasn’t sharing warmth with her at that point due to the fact that he was instead making his way out of Brooklyn and to the Manhattan lodging.

He pulled the borrowed jacket tighter around him as he stepped out of the shelter that came with the packed buildings, quietly grateful for Hotshot’s forethought, and kept walking. His cane, which he had slung through a belt loop so he could keep his hands in his pockets, hit his leg with every step, and a reminder came with every step of his position and of the risks that came with it. Mostly, however, it was a reminder that he should be back in his own lodging house, watching over his newsies, and not slipping away after dark to another lodging house. But Race’s face, hurt, betrayed and angry, had kept cropping up in his mind’s eye all day, no matter how hard he had tried to force it down. It wasn’t going to leave him until he fixed it. Until he took back the cruel words that he hadn’t even meant.

He should have left the cane behind.

The bridge was empty as Spot crossed it, a combination of darkness and the chill from the river pushing people into one of the boroughs either end. Anyone watching would have seen a lone figure crossing it, his shoulders up to his ears and his arms wrapped around himself to keep warm, what they wouldn’t have seen was the blood welling up from his lip where it cracked, and they wouldn’t have heard him berating himself for not doing this during the day, when the sun provided some warmth and the people and animals provided the rest.

*

Confusingly, it was Davey who opened the door, rather than Jack, the caretaker, or whichever kid one of them had left on watch. That was another irritation, in what was stretching out to be a long night, that Spot really didn’t need. He knew that he was never going to be able to intimidate Davey into doing what he wanted, and it was going to take some effort now to get in.

“Hey Mouth, don’t you have a house of your own?”

“Yeah,” Davey replied, looking slightly thrown by his presence there, “I was helping Jack with something.”

Spot bit his tongue to avoid saying anything he was thinking about that, in particular avoided making any comments about Jack and Davey’s relationship or what exactly Davey might have been ‘helping’ with, especially considering he wasn’t exactly sure what their relationship was since Jack was still apparently going out with the reporter girl from the strike. He really needed Davey to let him in, and he wasn’t going to do that if Spot insulted him.

“Why are you here?” Davey continued, “Jack isn’t expecting you.”

“Of course he ain’t, I’m not here to speak to him. I wanna talk to Racer.”

Davey paused at that and, annoyingly, Spot could see him piecing things together in his head- even if he weren’t entirely sure what those things were. “I’m not sure Race wants to talk to you right now.”

Spot grit his teeth, “I need to talk to him.”

“Ok,” Davey crossed his arms and stared straight back into a glare that had sent better men running, “I don’t know what you want me to do about that.”

“Let me in.”

“No.”

With that, it was evident they had reached a stalemate, and if it hadn’t been for Albert clattering down the stairs to see what was taking Davey so long, they might have remained there for the rest of the night. As it was, Albert demanded to know what was going on, pieced together the answer to his question from the argument that ensued and decided that Spot should, in fact, be allowed to speak to Racer, and apparently his position as Race’s best friend, and a newsboy longer than Davey had been overrode Davey’s decision.

Despite Davey’s unhappiness at the situation- which he expressed multiple times on the way up- and his apparent irritation at Spot, which had to be linked to however Race was acting as Spot hadn’t actually acted any different to how he acted normally, Albert led him into the lodging house and up the stairs to their bunkroom.

Only one bunk was occupied, everyone else was in the common room on the floor below, keeping together and laughing. The occupied bunk was towards the end of the room, near the window, and it was only obvious it was occupied as the blankets were lumped up around a human figure, while all others were flat and neat- a habit that had to have been started by Davey as they wouldn’t have cared what their beds looked like otherwise.

Albert gestured at the figure, shrugged, and then made a gesture across his throat with his thumb before disappearing. A threat. Spot sighed, pulled off the extra jacket he was wearing and made his way across the room, using footsteps loud enough that Race had to know someone was coming.

“Al, I already told you I just want to be left alone.” The pile of blankets informed him, “Go away.”

“I’m not Albert.”

The speed with which Race sat up to face him probably would have been funny under any other circumstances, but since it only brought his tear stained face into Spot’s view faster, ‘funny’ wasn’t really the word that Spot was thinking.

Race scowled, “What are you doing here?”

“I came to apologise?” Spot winced reflexively; he hadn’t meant it to come out as a question.

“I don’t want it.” Came the response and Race immediately rolled back over into the position he had been in before Spot came in.

Slightly at a loss for what to do, Spot sat down on the bunk next to Race and stared at his back. Briefly, he wished he had brought Hotshot along- she always knew the right thing to say to people, and she was the one who delt with the littles while they were upset. It wasn’t that Spot didn’t like the littles, he loved them and would kill for them, it was just that he had no idea how to relate to people emotionally. And that was slowly turning into a bigger problem than he had thought it would be.

“I didn’t mean it.” He said quietly, still staring at Race’s back, “I didn’t want to shove you off and say those things, I just panicked.”

Race sat back up again and attempted to scowl again, although it had lost some of the anger it had had previously. “So?”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry.”

“Yes. And I do want to kiss you and stuff, and I do want you to spend the night, if you still want to, I just, I don’t…”

“Don’t…?” Race prompted, and his tone was gentler than it had been before.

“I don’t know.”

There was a pause in which they both stared at each other, and Spot suddenly felt the weight of what he had said hit him. It was illegal to be doing what he had just asked Race to do, there were stories in the papers every so often of men who had been caught and thrown into jail, and he felt the sudden urge to run away and never speak to Race again.  
“You want to run away again, don’t you?” Race asked, sitting up properly, and if Spot hadn’t been already head over heels for him- no matter how much he tried to deny it to himself- he thought that he might have fallen in love with Race right there, simply for his innate ability to see through him.

“It’s dangerous. My boys might not respect me…” The white hot panic that he had felt earlier in the day when Race had leaned in and kissed him was back, the idea that if they found out he would be beaten up and thrown back out on the streets, that he could go back to being a nobody squeezed his chest and made him want to hit something- probably Race considering he was the one who was causing these feelings.

“We can be careful.” Race whispered, moving over to lay his hand on Spot’s leg. “We won’t get caught.”

Spot looked down at the hand, which had begun to rub comforting circles on his thigh, and somehow felt more relaxed. “We can be careful.” He repeated.

“Can I kiss you? Again?”

Slightly choked up from the sheer amount of emotion he was feeling, Spot nodded, and Race leaned in, putting slightly more pressure on Spot’s leg- almost painful, by the time they were nose to nose- and carefully pressed his lips to Spot’s. It was a little messy, uncoordinated and their teeth clacked together too much, but it was almost perfect, and Spot could see himself doing this for the rest of his life.

A crash from downstairs made them jump apart, and Spot wanted to yell at them both for being so careless, for doing it in a place where anyone could just walk in. Race’s smile stopped him.

“Can you stay the night?” he asked, quiet and shy and utterly perfect in Spot’s eyes. The part of him that had been gone for Race from the moment they met screamed at him to say yes, to roll the two of them onto the bed and hold Race to his chest for the rest of the night and stay with him in Manhattan until the two of them aged out. The rest of him, the part that was the King of Brooklyn, and was constantly focused on whether or not his actions would be good for his newsies, that part knew he had to leave. And, even as it knew that, Spot was a little surprised to realise that that part of him was in love with Race as well.

“I promised Hotshot I’d be back before midnight.” He looked away so he didn’t have to see Race’s face fall.

“You’ll need to leave soon then. It’s a long walk back to Brooklyn.”

Taking the hint for what it was, Spot rose, Race’s hand slipping off his thigh as he did, and he immediately missed its warmth and comforting presence. “I’ll- uh- I’ll see you at Sheepshead tomorrow?”

Race grinned, brighter than ever before, “I’ll be there.”

Spot nodded, a little awkwardly and carefully backed out of the bunkroom, pausing at the door to give Race an awkward wave, which Race readily returned. On his way out, he passed Davey, who raised an eyebrow but otherwise allowed him to continue unstopped.

*

As Spot carefully backed out of view, Race allowed himself to let out a little happy squeal and hugged his- admittedly flat- pillow to his chest.

“Albie! Get in here!”

Unsurprisingly, Albert had been hovering outside the window and hopped in immediately, “How did it go? Do I need to beat him up?”

“He let me kiss him. And he said he’d see me at Sheepshead tomorrow!”

Albert let out an excited squeal, not dissimilar to the one Race had just let out, “That’s amazing!”

“Yeah.” Race sighed happily and lay back, staring up at the other bunk, “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Albert shoved on next to him, “Me neither! This is amazing!”

“You already said that!”

“I know!”

The two of them looked at each other and burst out laughing, Albert wrapped his arms around Race and they continued laughing, rolling around on the tiny bed and just bathing in each other’s company and the happiness they didn’t often experience.

Unknown to them, Davey was stood at the door, listening to their conversation and smiling quietly- he had been genuinely worried when Spot appeared at their door demanding to speak to Race, especially considering that Race had returned early from Brooklyn having obviously been crying. Apparently his concerningly parental worry hadn’t been necessary, but he would tell Jack, and maybe they would quietly threaten Spot with consequences if Race ever returned from Brooklyn crying again.

*

On the Brooklyn bridge, Spot climbed up onto one of the struts, and stared out across the water, watching the way the lights reflected on the water and tried to stop touching his lips every few seconds. For the first time in a while, he didn’t feel weighed down by all his responsibilities, he was looking forward to the next selling day.

Hotshot raised an eyebrow- in a concerningly similar manner to how Davey had done so earlier- and gestured at the clock, which was showing a quatre past twelve. “I was gonna give it another half hour before I sent out a search party,” she threatened in a whisper, “now get in to bed and you are going to tell me where you went in the morning.”

He rolled his eyes, shucked off his outer layers and carefully climbed onto the single bunk that she normally slept on alone. “Goodnight, Niamh.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Goodnight, Sean.”

And then, just as he had rolled over and shut his eyes she quietly added, “This ‘Hattan boy better be worth it.”

“He is. He really really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> you know that scene in 92sies, the world will know reprise where spot comes round the corner with all the working kids of new york? yeah i love that so much but I can never find it on youtube  
> Also that was kind of the inspiration behind this don't ask me how  
> uhhhhh good platonic ralbert bc everyone needs a best friend & girlsie hotshot bc i love.


End file.
